We always have to go through something to grow, regardless of age. My parents told me very early on that when you grow up, you will be able to protect your parents like an adult. When I was younger, I asked about the specific deadline for growing up, and they replied that some children grew up at the age of seventeen or eighteen, and some were still children in their twenties. I don't know exactly when I grew up to be an adult in their eyes, I just know that I didn't have a chance to eat the cake of my eighteen-year-old coming-of-age ceremony.

It was the last days of late autumn that year, the sun was scorching the hot earth, the crops were already ripe, the northern land was bare, the air was dry, and the breath would make you feel sick. At noon, some people in the village will take their own dishes and chopsticks to appear in the shade of the alley where everyone often gathers, a bunch of people in twos and threes, that is the unique scene of the countryside at that time, everyone will be used to talking about some short gossip of the east and west during the meal.

In the afternoon, my sister and I had to go to school, and we had to catch the bus to the city before 3 o'clock to make sure that we wouldn't be late for the evening self-study that day. According to the custom, lunch was basically over at two o'clock in the afternoon, and that day was an exception, my mother was called away at noon, and she did not come back for two hours, and my sister had already reconciled and was waiting for my mother to come home and cook the pot. When there was no movement, she instructed me to go to the village to find my mother, and she got up to prepare what she wanted to bring to school.

The electric car was ridden away, and I had to pedal the old bicycle that had not been moving for a long time as a tool to find people, and the squeaking sound made my mood a little more irritated. No matter how big a mother is, does it matter if she can have children go to school and eat? It's really irresponsible, thinking of this, I set out on the dirt road to find my mother.

When the uncle who was eating at the entrance of the village saw me, he told me the truth about my mother's presence in the village committee compound, and he seemed to know the purpose of my appearance, so it didn't take much effort to find my mother.

The yard of the village committee is not big, and four or five cars can be parked, and there will be no full parking on weekdays, most of the village cadres ride electric cars to work, and occasionally meet people from above, there will be two or three cars, but the few parking spaces that day are full of all kinds of cheap cars, a sense of solemn style.

When I got to the door of the village committee, I heard the noise inside, and the faint confrontation of some of the mothers seemed insignificant in the fierce atmosphere, and the short distance from the yard to the office was the only information I could gather. The moment I appeared in that room, there was a moment of relaxation, and of course only for a moment. When my mother saw me, she motioned for me to go out first, and it was clear that the conversation between the adults was not over, so I timidly withdrew from the door and quietly savored the hustle and bustle not far from the small room.

Inside the house is a large family of us in addition to my father, grandpa has passed away two years ago, grandma has always lived with the uncle's family, in addition to the three of them, there is also an uncle of our Ye family, the fifth in the big family, and the uncle's family has a good relationship, and he also respects his grandfather, and the other is the father of the fifth uncle, one of the few remaining elders in the family, and is also the grandfather's younger brother. The other two, one is the village chief, and the other is a leader from the township, and that's the conclusion I drew from their conversations. I still remember all of you who were there at the time, who witnessed a pivotal moment when a teenager experienced first-hand the humiliation of his mother and did nothing.

My father was working in the factory next door and didn't come back, so he didn't attend the family meeting. More than that, he wasn't there at many of my moments, the first time he was arrested, the school's parent-teacher meeting, he didn't even show up once to study far away from home, but I didn't complain about him, because he was using his own hands to make money to support his family in his absence, he was using his own efforts to run his fragile family, he was my pride, although Lao Ye did not give Xiao Ye a very rich life, but in many things Lao Ye did not treat Xiao Ye badly.

The topic of discussion in the room is about the content of grandma's pension, raising children to prevent old age, which is natural and righteous, and it is no more normal than traditional Chinese virtues. When we got to our house, something went wrong. To this day, some of my grandmother's relatives still say that my parents are unfilial children.

Yes, my mother was strongly opposed to doing her duty.

There are three reasons: first of all, my grandmother has the ability to take care of herself, and she doesn't need to trouble her children, because after my grandfather died, more than ten acres of land in the family have always been in her hands, and she is working hard in spring and autumn, although manual labor such as watering and fertilizing the ground has to be voluntarily labored by her children. Second, the annual income from the field should be enough for her daily life, and there should be no need for additional subsidies. Third, the treatment expenses for the grandfather's hospitalization were all paid by the two sons, but the expenses reimbursed by the medical insurance were held by the grandmother. For this reason, my mother quarreled with my father on this matter. These should be enough for the daily living expenses of a small old lady in the countryside.

Grandma's response was that there was not enough money to spend, she wanted to smoke, play cards, eat, survive, and give courtesy, and then she cried, made trouble, and hanged herself. The uncle didn't express any opinions during the whole process, but just asked the village chief and the township leaders to make ideas, while the fifth uncle was like an old-fashioned peacemaker, seeing the stitches but slightly partiality.

In the short period of time outside the door, I heard the people in the house shouting in a slightly righteous way, and most of the impolite roars were aimed at the middle-aged woman, which roughly means that the old man has the ability to be autonomous and cannot be used as an excuse for his children to fail their obligations, and the unfilial behavior is despicable. I knew at the time that the outsider was found by some insiders, nominally to uphold justice, but in fact he was here to humiliate the parties, and afterwards he could pat his ass and leave, anyway, it had no effect on himself.

Hearing the outsider's disdainful remarks, I felt the urge to kill him, and no one could choose to remain indifferent when his mother was insulted by others, even if he coerced him.

It's just that in the end I still chose to be indifferent, not instigated, just because I know that he is not the initiator, the driving force behind it is other people who seem to be close to me, and those people have also expressed disrespect for their mother before, I have tried to resist as a son, but was stopped by my mother, in her words, you don't care about the affairs of adults, just do what you have to do, and it will be good when you grow up.

I know what the reason is why my mother doesn't want to fulfill her maintenance obligations, it is nothing to give more to the elderly, and there is nothing for the elderly to be greedy at all. It's just that she has her own worries, and she is afraid that she has done her duty, but she will not be able to enjoy the rights she deserves. After all, the ancestral house is in the hands of grandma, the land is in the hands of grandma, and grandma only cares about her uncle, and she has already understood this fact in the more than ten years since her mother got married. But it's normal, after all, her father is just her adopted son.

The meeting with the presence of leaders finally ended successfully, signed, and drawn, which was originally a family, but it was so formal. After all, the mother did not achieve her own demand, even if she had her own share of the right to use the land, she did not get it, but agreed that after three years, the grandmother did not want to work and then divided it among the two brothers. No one can say whether it's true or not, maybe she will play a scoundrel like the medical insurance incident again, and then she will indeed play a scoundrel again, but everyone is used to it. The mother also chose to be forced to accept it again and again in helplessness. I always thought that my grandmother just didn't have enough security, and wanted to grasp enough money to protect her life, old age, sickness and death when she was too old to live independently. It wasn't until many years later that I realized how naïve I was.

My grandmother died in my fifth year of entering society, and during the five years when I was able to make money, I would give her a brand new hundred yuan every year when I met with her, and tried my best to slap the only old man in my family at that time. When I heard the news of her death, I didn't think about crying, but just knowing the fact that all the old people in the family were gone from that moment on. When I heard the news, I didn't feel as much as my grandfather died, but went home silently, and was busy with the funeral arrangements like a man like my father and uncle, and my mother and I didn't shed a single tear during the funeral, and I could feel the slightly complaining looks of the guests at that time. Not crying at a funeral in China is disrespectful to the deceased, and I just want to tell everyone that I just want to be disrespectful, because my mother has never been respected by the deceased, and the people in the coffin have never respected her once until she died, and in the deceased's will, she even listed all kinds of unfilial piety as a daughter-in-law, and even deprived her of all the right to inherit property on this ground, why did she get her respect, and why did she get my respect.

After the meeting, I went home with my mother, and our yard was in the northernmost part of the village, and it was the only homestead in the village that my parents had chosen after they decided to move out of the old house. Except for the location that is a little off, everything else is good. My mother chose to ride a bicycle and asked me to go back first, I just followed her without a response, and the people on the road and alley asked how it was handled, and my mother responded indifferently that it was all dealt with, I had to go home to cook, and the children had to go to school and so on.

When she got home, she cried, her suppressed emotions were released at that moment, and her sister asked what happened, but her mother just wiped her tears, and didn't say a word about what happened to her, but just asked us to study hard and get ahead. When my sister saw that she couldn't ask anything from my mother, she asked me back, and I only said, "It's not your grandmother's business." She didn't ask anymore, probably knowing that her mother had been wronged by her grandmother again, so she could only comfort her mother in her own way.

Later, I heard that after we went home that day, the village chief and they went to a restaurant in the town to eat, and a group of several people drove a car out of the village committee compound when they were not very imposing, and I don't know if my mother ate at noon that day, because I had to catch the latest bus.

On the way to school, my sister kept asking my mother why she had been gone for so long, trying to get some details out of my mouth, but I chose to keep quiet, and if I could, I hoped that she could live a less tired life.